Hindi films featuring aatmas and pretaatmas have forever stuck to a clichéd construct — creaky chairs, flickering bulbs, plastic dolls that bleed from their frozen eyes and a symphonic crescendo that culminates in a chalk-faced apparition appearing with a jolt. Lupt is hardly any different and opens with a spooky item number. A woman in Halloween eye makeup preens on a disco floor, repeating the film’s title in a jarring track. Let’s just say, there’s something for everyone here.

Harsh Tandon (Javed Jaffrey) reveals a glimmer of his foul temper when someone offers an excuse in a board meeting. The commander and chief of Tandon Group of Industries, the business tycoon has compromised his “zameer” for “tarraki” as someone notes. But meteoric success and pulling in long hours weigh him down and he’s diagnosed as a “case of chronic insomnia”. His only complain: “Kabhi kabhi kuch log dikhte hain, but they’re not there.” Coincidentally, that’s just what the usher said about the audience in the screen playing this film. A blurry young girl jaywalks in front of Tandon’s car and seems dangerously close to being run over, a chalk-faced chudail is seen standing in the middle of his office — but these visions are short-lived, unlike the niggling headache this film leaves you with.

Things get spooky when Tandon heads for a vacation with his family, comprising wife Shalini (Niki Walia), son Sam (Rishab Chadha), daughter Tanu (Meenakshi Dixit) and her boyfriend Rahul (Karan Anand). A forced detour leads them to a lonely dark road where their car breaks down. Their only hope: resigning at a stranger’s outhouse. An ominous death-metal voice offers a forewarning on the radio: “Sab mar jayenge” and the beginning of the end seems inevitable.

The spirits in Lupt, like in many others, whoosh past the screen like a dark blur — resembling shoppers in a Dubai mall. The tedious and often unnecessary reliance on tropes such as amplified sound effects and inanimate objects moving by themselves are enough to disappoint fans of the genre who’ve seen it all.

Jaffrey, once known for his inimitable wit and funky moves, couldn’t have been more out of place in his horrid horror. While he tries to lend some dignity to the proceedings, the incessant reliance on tropes makes this one barely sufferable. If Vijay Raaz was cast in this film for comic relief, his punchlines don’t deliver — pin it on the trailer that gives away his character’s best lines or maybe they never had what it takes.

The million concerns that one has with Lupt, include the fact that the evil presence here turns over a new leaf at one point. For the less instinctive, a lone tear rolls down her pale cheeks and it’s confirmed — she, like the makers of Lupt, meant well and any incidental harm caused in the process was unintentional.

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